The first sign of relenting toward the captive lad was when he was allowed to withdraw from the hard work of strengthening a lodge to take a place alone in one of the bull boats and navigate it with a paddle down the river, at a place where it had a depth past fording. The stream was swift here and, despite his knowledge of ordinary curves, the round craft overturned with him before he had gone twenty feet, amid shouts of laughter from the Sioux gathered on either bank. The water flowing down from the mountains was very cold, but Will scorned to cry for help. He was a powerful swimmer and he struck out boldly for the round boat, which was floating ahead. He had held on to the paddle all the while and, by a desperate struggle, he managed to right his craft and pull himself into it again. He was so much immersed in his physical struggle that he did not know the Indian children were pelting him with sticks and clods of earth, and were shouting in amusement and derision. But the warriors were grave and silent. Another struggle and the round boat overturned again. But he held on to the paddle and recovered it a second time. A new and desperate contest between him and the boat followed, but in the end he was victor and paddled it both down and up-stream in a fairly steady manner. Then he brought it into the landing where he was received in a respectful silence. In his struggles to succeed Will had taken little notice of the coldness of the waters, but when he went back to the lodge he had a severe chill, followed by a high fever. Then old Inmutanka proved himself the doctor that Will called him by using a remedy that either killed or cured. Inmutanka gave the lad a sweat bath. He made a heap of stones and built a big fire upon them, feeding it until their heat was very great. Then he scraped away the fuel and put up a framework made of poles, covered with layers of skins. These layers were six or seven feet above the stones. Will was placed in a skin hammock under the layers and suspended about two feet above the hot stones. Water was then poured on these, until a dense steam arose. When Inmutanka thought that Will had stood it as long as he could, he withdrew him from the hot steam bath, although medicine men sometimes left their patients in too long, allowing them to be scalded to death. In Will's case it was cure, not kill. The fever quickly disappeared from his system and though it left him very weak he recovered so rapidly that in a few days he was as strong as ever, in fact, stronger, because all the impurities had been steamed out of his system, and the new blood generated was better than the old. He learned, too, from Inmutanka that he had won respect in the village by his courage and tenacity, and that many were in favor of lightening his labors, although the Fox was as stern as ever.